Prof. Julie Shah speaks with Washington Post reporter Tatum Hunter about whether AI technologies will ever surpass human intelligence. “Any positive or negative use or outcome of this technology isn't predetermined. We have a lot of choices that we make,” Shah says. “And these should not be decisions that are left solely to technologists. Everybody needs to be involved because this technology has such a broad impact on all of us.”
Nene Anagbogu ’18 and Colin Webb ’18 cofounded Sauce, a startup that provides analytics and dynamic pricing for restaurants, reports Frederick Daso for Forbes. “We’re the perfect combination of restaurant, data and product,” Anagbogu and Webb tell Daso. “Our families started small businesses, and we worked in restaurants, so we know what our customers are going through.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and former executive chairman of Google and Alphabet, explore how AI provides an opportunity for humans to redefine our roles in the world and the need to consider AI’s impact on culture, humanity and history. They underscore the importance of, “shaping AI with human values, including the dignity and moral agency of humans. In the U.S., a commission, administered by the government but staffed by many thinkers in many domains, should be established. The advancement of AI is inevitable, but its ultimate destination is not.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Sherry Turkle explores how in order to fix social media platforms, we also need to alter our views on empathy and disagreement. “We lose out when we don’t take the time to listen to each other, especially to those who are not like us,” writes Turkle. “We need to learn again to tolerate difference and disagreement.”
Axios reporter Alison Snyder writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how AI algorithms could provide insight into the human brain’s processing abilities. The researchers found “Predicting the next word someone might say — like AI algorithms now do when you search the internet or text a friend — may be a key part of the human brain's ability to process language,” writes Snyder.
Using an integrative modeling technique, MIT researchers compared dozens of machine learning algorithms to brain scans as part of an effort to better understand how the brain processes language. The researchers found that “neural networks and computational science might, in fact, be critical tools in providing insight into the great mystery of how the brain processes information of all kinds,” writes Anna Blaustein for Scientific American.
TechCrunch reporter Mary Ann Azevedo spotlights Adam Marcus ’12 and Nitesh Banta, the co-founders of B12, a digital platform designed to establish, run and grow professional services firms online. B12 is focused on helping “smaller professional service organizations such as law and accounting firms or mortgage brokerages more easily accept online payments and build a digital presence in general,” writes Ann Azevedo.
Drew Houston ’05, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, speaks with Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner about his favorite courses and extracurriculars activities at MIT, his first computer, and the future of work at Dropbox during a recent visit to MIT where he announced a gift that will endow a professorship in the Schwarzman College of Computing. “I loved studying computer science, and I loved things like distributed systems and operating systems and algorithms,” said Houston of his time at MIT. “Those were my favorite classes. I had grown up tinkering under the hood of my computer, trying to figure out how it worked.”
Gizmodo reporter Andrew Liszewski writes that MIT researchers “used a high-resolution video camera with excellent low-light performance (the amount of sensor noise has to be as minimal as possible) to capture enough footage of a blank well that special processing techniques were able to not only see the shadow’s movements, but extrapolate who was creating them.”
MIT has been named one of the top 20 universities in the world for studying cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, reports Taylor Locke for CNBC.
Scientific American reporter Sophie Bushwick writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that can interpret shadows that are invisible to the human eye. “The system can automatically analyze footage of a blank wall in any room in real time, determining the number of people and their actions,” writes Bushwick.
TechCrunch reporter Kate Park spotlights Catalog, a startup founded by MIT graduates that is “developing an energy-efficient, cost-competitive and more secure data storage and computation platform by using synthetic DNA.”
Mashable reporter Emmett Smith spotlights how MIT researchers have created a new toolkit for designing wearable devices that can be 3D printed. “The researchers used the kit to create sample devices, like a personal muscle monitor that uses augmented reality,” explains Smith, “plus a device for recognizing hand gestures and a bracelet for identifying distracted driving.”
Fortune reporter Shawn Tully writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that examines the amount of e-waste Bitcoin generates. The researchers found that: “In 2020, the Bitcoin network processed 120 million transactions,” writes Tully. “For every sale or purchase recorded on the blockchain, the miners disposed of e-waste equal in weight to two iPhone 12 Minis. In other words, the industry trashed the equivalent of 240 million of the 135 gram mobile devices.”
Mashable reporter Meera Navlakha writes that researchers from the MIT AgeLab have found that when using partially automated driving systems drivers may become less attentive. The researchers found that when using the Autopilot system in Tesla vehicles, “visual behaviour amongst drivers is altered before and after Autopilot is disengaged. That means before the feature is switched on/off, drivers look less on the road and pay more attention to ‘non-driving related areas.’”